comatose
by impulsivegallagher
Summary: Telling Ian about this would be reckless, careless at the best but keeping it from him would provide even more of a risk. The way he sees it, there's really no option. Ian has to know.
1. Chapter 1

comatose

Crushing the cigarette underneath his foot, he found himself faced with a sense of dread as he stared up at the house his brother had once called home. He'd only just gotten the news, unsure of whether or not telling his manic brother was a good or bad idea. He was positive even the smallest mention of Mickey Milkovich would set his brother off on a roadtrip straight out of town and he'd only just returned after his last episode.

Lip ran a hand through his unruly curls and sighed deeply. It wasn't as if the Milkovich household was a foreign concept to him; he'd stayed there quite a number of days years prior when he had left his own home. It was the occupants that had Lip hesitating, though if anyone were to ask why he was standing around, he was simply having a smoke. With a cigarette that had already been put out.

Before he had a chance to compose himself and approach what was surely impending doom the door was pushed open and a large body was sent tumbling into what was left of the grass.

"Get the fuck out of here, you piece of shit!"

And with that remark Lip's eyes were brought to the doorway where Mickey Milkovich stood, looking particularly worn down as though he hadn't gotten sleep since he was pried out of the womb.

Lip waited for the mess of limbs to scurry off the property line before he internally groaned and made his presence known. If Mickey was surprised, he didn't show it.

"The hell are you doing here, Gallagher?"

Lip ignored the undertones of worry that were hidden deep underneath the harsh tone and pulled another cigarette from his pocket. Last he'd seen Ian had been during another manic episode; of course Mickey would be worried, automatically assuming the older boy's presence was to bring bad news. Shielding it from the slight breeze as he lit it, he gave himself a minute of peace before turning to explain himself.

"Yeah, uh, your sister called. Told me some shit happened," He said it with ease but was careful to watch for any signs that Mickey might bolt. He was met with nothing but silence as the shorter boy leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, looking as indignant as always.

"Yeah, well, Mandy needs to learn how to keep her fucking mouth shut," Mickey remarked, but otherwise offered no explanation. He leaned forward on the railing and lit his own cigarette, arching an eyebrow as Lip visibly struggled to find an acceptable response.

They were both saved from what was sure to be either awkwardly matched silence or an explosion as Mandy suddenly appeared in the entrance. She met Lip's eyes briefly before laying a hard punch to Mickey's shoulder. And another. And again.

"What the fuck did I tell you about coming out here in the cold you fucking jackass?" She kicked him hard in the shin and continued to grow in volume even after he'd managed to hold her steady. "You stupid, careless asshole. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Jesus Christ, Mandy, fuck off," He shoved her away, flicking the cigarette to the ground and smashing his foot over it. "I already had a ma, I don't need you up my ass with your stupid shit."

Lip watched from a distance, only mildly surprised when Mandy smacked hard into his shoulder as she strode past. All it took was one look in Mickey's direction to realize that all the stories were true; he wasn't blind or naive enough to believe otherwise.

"The fuck you looking at?" Mickey hardly waited for a response, instead turning to head back inside, but Lip was quick to voice his thoughts and stop him dead in his tracks.

The idea of Mickey Milkovich ever showing any hint of emotion other than anger was laughable at best, but due to his brother Lip had gotten a peek behind the curtains and he knew better than to believe what was shown at first glance.

All it took were three words to stop the shorter boy, the Milkovich that had seemingly spent years building up this reputation only for Lip's gangly brother to send it all crashing down.

"Does Ian know?"

Mickey didn't turn around, didn't even spare the eldest Gallagher boy a passing glance, but his back stiffened and Lip had his answer. He'd been aware the two had left off no better than he and Mandy, though he supposed a jail cell would give one more time to saturate in the fact that they were suddenly and hopelessly alone.

Lip had already turned to go; there was no point in pining for an answer he had already picked up on solely from Mickey's physical response.

"Uh, no." A pause. "Gallagher doesn't know."

The voice came out uncharacteristically unsure, wary even, but Lip had no chance to conjure up a response before the door was shut, Mickey disappearing behind it.

Lip ran a sweaty palm down the length of his face and kicked at the fence, only thinking of the impact this would hold on his brother. Ian's reaction would be unpredictable at best; his reactions had been off the walls since his diagnosis. Lip played with the idea of keeping this newfound information locked up in a vault in the back of his mind never to let it see the light of day again, to let Ian and Mickey deal with their bullshit on their own, but as he visualized the worn lines on the shorter's boy face and the overall lack of energy, he knew keeping this hidden was out of the question.

Lip continued down the path, pausing in his stride as he caught sight of wild blonde hair flying freely in the wind. Stopping underneath the L he moved over to where Mandy stood steadily, her arms crossed, hair swirling before her in a wild mess of strands. She didn't bother to even bare him a glance, instead focused on the leaves that were being swept in their direction.

He battled a waging war in his mind; Mandy was nearly as unpredictable as Ian, just one nudge in the wrong direction and they'd be standing on completely different sides of the playing field. In the end he settled on staying silent. He'd come to realize all too late that had she wanted to say something, she would.

"They let him out a few months ago," She finally said, voice no steadier than he'd expected it to be. She was a Milkovich; her defenses would take an army and a half to pull down completely. "Said he was on death's doorstep."

Lip let the words sink in and turned his back against the wind, sinking his hand into his pocket and offering her a cigarette. She met his eyes briefly and shook her head, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself.

"Can't smoke in the house anymore, guess old habits die hard." She didn't offer up much more of an explanation and so he took it with a grain of salt.

"How long's he had it?" Lip questioned, cigarette held between his teeth.

"They didn't figure it out till it was too late," She spat, "Didn't do a damn good letting him out, either. He's always smoking or drinking or beating the shit out of whoever looks at him the wrong way; he's angry."

"Same old Mickey, right?" Lip offered, arching an eyebrow at her. She fought back a smile before the frown lines that seemed to have been permanently embedded into her skin reappeared, all humor lost.

"He's erratic, irrational. He's reckless, constantly throwing himself in situations that don't concern him," She shook her head.

Lip made a face. "Mands, I'm not seeing how he's any different. He's been like this as long as I've known him, as long as Ian's known him."

Mandy's eyes shone with anger that was only partially aimed at Lip as she turned to face him. "Difference is, he's dying this time." She snatched the cigarette out of his hands and inhaled. "Ian needs to know. Fucking deserves to know after everything."

"What if he has another episode? He's unpredictable right now, a lion trapped in a cage. Anything could pick that lock and let him loose; it's a risk I don't want to fuck with. We just got him back," Lip grimaced at the memory. Undoubtedly, his brother's near death experience would be welded into his brain until the day he died.

"Oh, I get it," Mandy spat, pushing against his chest sending him a few feet back. "Mickey's fucking dying. Could drop at any fucking minute and you're worried Ian's going to break down. Guess what, assface; he's meant to break down!" She pushed him again, ignoring the anger that was slowly beginning to surface in his eyes. "He needs to fucking know about this! This isn't a game; it's a fucking ticking time bomb and we're plucking at the wiring. He has to know."

Lip's anger seemed to dissipate slightly and he took a heavy breath to steady himself. "I don't want to take that chance; I don't want to permanently lose Ian. He'll fly off the rails, Mandy, and then he'll be gone."

"And you think he won't if he finds out Mickey is dead and he didn't have a chance to say goodbye?" She took a step closer to him, tilting her head in carefully controlled anger. "You were always an asshole, but you were never this dense."

"Then we just don't tell him."

He found himself on the floor, his cheek bruising before he'd even had to time to process what was happening. Turning to face her again he was unsurprised when she lunged at him again, throwing her fist in his direction. He grabbed her hand at the last second and pushed her back.

"You fucking stupid piece of shit!" She went for him again, hair flowing madly, fists flying. "That's my brother, you asshole!" She took a breath and stepped back, holding her hands up in surrender. "You know what? Here I was thinking maybe you grew up a little bit; as it turns out you're still the same selfish piece of shit you always were. You don't wanna tell erratic Ian? Fine. But what do you think Ian's gonna do when he's stable again?" She stepped closer. "When he realizes Mick got released? When he hears that the gay Milkovich kid is dead? You can hide this from him, but I won't. You don't think he won't lose his mind over this? You really think he won't give a shit? I thought you knew your brother better than that."

Mandy gave him no chance to respond only whipping his cigarette back at him before turning and walking in the direction she came from. He winced as the cigarette burnt against his hand and stomped it out as it fell to the ground. At this point, his options were more than limited because Mandy had already made it abundantly clear that Ian would find out one way or another and he couldn't say that some of her points weren't valid. Carrying out the act of telling Ian while he was still unstable was something he didn't want to even begin to fuck with, but he wasn't left with much more of a choice.

Lip was met with a blood curdling shriek as he entered his home through the front door and he immediately followed the sound waves until he was met with pure chaos. Fiona held Ian to the bed, Debbie standing back her hand held against her mouth as though this behavior was something new. Lip pushed past his younger sister and grabbed at Ian, holding him down as the younger boy struggled against the restraints.

"What the fuck is going on?" Lip shouted over Ian's loud threats.

Carl crossed the threshold before Fiona could provide any type of response, a syringe held tightly in his palm. Tossing it to Fiona, she injected Ian in the arm hastily, refusing to move even after he'd been forced into sleep. She ran her hand across her forehead and inhaled deeply.

"What the fuck happened, Fiona?" Lip demanded, pacing the second his feet hit the floor. "I thought you said you got him to take his pills again!"

"He told me he did," She said helplessly, looking more than a little angry at herself and he couldn't blame her.

"And you believed him?" He spoke with disbelief singed with something a lot like disappointment. "Jesus, Fiona."

"It's not her fault," Carl spoke up from behind them after his presence had been all but forgotten. "I was supposed to be watching him."

Lip softened but only slightly. "Can someone just tell me what the fuck happened?"

"I looked away for five minutes and he was gone," Carl explained, his voice softer than any of them had heard in years. "Debbie found him."

He eyed the floor and Lip followed his line of vision until he came upon an object he had missed until then. A butcher knife from the kitchen laid across the floor mockingly, as though it knew what it's job had just been.

"He had it against his wrist," Debbie murmured, eyes focused on the object. "He said that he was happy this way."

Lip's eyebrows creased and he held his hands against Debbie's cheeks, offering the little comfort he could. "Debs, what happened after that?"

Debbie seemed to be brought back to reality, eyes moving away from the knife as she stepped out of his grasp.  
"He was just like Monica," She swallowed heavily.

His hands fell uselessly to his sides and he desperately pushed away the memories of Debbie as a little girl out of his mind; she and Carl had both lost too much of their childhood due to tragedy after tragedy. It was something he couldn't think about it; there was no way to erase the scars that had been engraved into their skin.

"Is he going to be okay?" She asked, sounding much more like the little girl Lip sometimes still envisioned her as. Vulnerability was never common in the family but it came out in her tone all the same, and he could do nothing to erase it. They'd all lost too much.

He and Fiona traded a glance and both decided without words that too much of the kids' lives had been robbed; this was their problem, they would handle it.

"Yeah, he'll be okay," Fiona eventually said, though from Debbie's snort and Carl's look of disgust it was made more than clear they didn't buy it.

"I'm seventeen years old," Carl fought back, anger seeping into his voice, "stop shutting me out because you think I'm too young to handle it."

Lip fought for a way to explain this adequately but ended up deciding to just be practical. "You're still kids, both of you. We'll handle it."

Debbie laughed bitterly. "The way you've handled everything else? Was it not Fiona who let Liam ingest a bag of coke?" She met her older sister's eyes with a certain fire Lip had seen in Mandy's eyes less than an hour prior. "Was it not you, Lip, who nearly killed Ian less than a month ago?"

She held her hands up and began to back out of the room, tension thick enough to cut with a knife. "I didn't sign up to be treated like nothing more than a child my entire life."

She had only just turned to cross the threshold when Lip's next words stopped her completely.

"I'm beginning to think we're never going to get the old Ian back. At least not in one piece," He admitted.

"Then we get him new pills," Debbie suggested, the vulnerability and false hope mingling together in a tone that Lip knew all too well.

"It's not just the pills, Debs," Fiona said softly. She glanced down at Ian's sleeping form and pressed a hand against his cheek. "We're just not fit to deal with this. He needs to see a doctor who is."

An explosion erupted at that.

"So we're just going to give up on him then?" Carl's voice rose in more than anger. "What happened to family before everything?"

"Was that your motto when you got yourself thrown in juvie?" Debbie interjected spitefully. "Let us all clean up after your mess?"

"Shut the hell up," He argued. A slight pause. "At least I didn't get myself pregnant only to give it up for adoption when the baby daddy left me in the dark."

Debbie lunged at Carl, Lip pulling his brother behind him and holding her at bay. "Lip, get off me!"

Nowhere near fazed by his younger sister's threats, he glanced at Fiona, freezing as she held up an empty bag. She swallowed and blinked rapidly to clear the water from her eyes and Lip knew.

Gently shoving Debbie back, Lip grabbed the bag out of Fiona's shaking hands and held it up for no less than a second before angrily whipping it into the wall. All aggressive interaction between Debbie and Carl ceased immediately as Lip kicked the bedside drawer repeatedly, his own anger overwhelming any rational thought he had previously had.

"This whole time he's been doing fucking coke," Lip spat when the drawer fell off track and he'd done as much damage as he could without permanently injuring himself. "It's probably been fucking with his pills. God dammit! Who the fuck knows what else he's been doing!"

For good measure he kicked at the drawer again, some of its contents falling to the floor uselessly. As if someone was coming for him personally, a picture of the devil himself stared up at him from the floor. In a picture that Ian must've twisted his arm to get him into, Mickey Milkovich stood facing the camera arms crossed looking annoyed as ever. Lip bent down to grasp it between his fingers and laughed softly more in disbelief than anything. This really couldn't have come at a worse time.

Fiona stood behind him, smiling softly at the picture. "I wonder how much Ian paid him to get him to stand still."

Lip closed his eyes and fought against the rational voice in his head telling him to keep his mouth shut because who knew what Ian would do and -

"Mickey's dying."

The sentence came out almost casually, though the actual words were anything but. His old room suddenly seemed three sizes smaller as all eyes were suddenly drawn to him.

"He's what?" Fiona fought to keep the disbelief out of her voice but it was there nonetheless. "I thought he was still behind prison bars?"

"They let him out a few months ago," Lip scratched at his eyebrow, an uncomfortable sense of dread building in his lower abdomen. He glanced over at his sleeping brother before continuing carefully. "They, uh, they said he was on his death bed. I can't imagine he's got much time left."

Fiona backed into the wall and blew air from her mouth. "And Ian has no idea?"

"None at all," Lip muttered, his disgust at the situation making way to his wording. "We can't tell him. Not when he's like this."

"We can't keep it from him," Fiona interjected immediately, staring at him with something similar to massive surprise that he'd suggest such a thing. "I won't do that to him."

"So we tell him and then what happens? He goes on a bender and we don't see him for a few years? He runs off the way Monica did? He becomes a bipolar addict?" Lip shook his head. "I'm not saying to keep it from him, but we just need a little bit of time. Just for him to be stable again."

"And what if Mickey dies within that set time?" She crossed her arms. "No, we have to tell him. Hiding it isn't an option."

Lip threw his hands up in something akin to annoyance. "You wanna deal with Ian when he goes off the rail, you be my guest. But I'm not gonna stick around to watch it."

"So you're just going to walk away and let him be our burden?" The second the words left her mouth, Fiona froze. Regret dotted every corner of her face and she hastily attempted to correct herself. "That's not what I meant."

Ian sleepily rose from the bed behind Fiona, his eyes still bleary from the forced nap and all it took was one look for Lip to conclude that he'd heard Fiona.

"What's going on?" Ian asked, swallowing down the fact that he'd been called a burden with a sour taste. He raised his hand to his head and groaned internally at the throbbing pain in his temple. It was only as he glanced around the room that he caught sight of the knife that laid on the hardwood floor and froze.

"What the fuck did I do?" He mumbled horrified at what the knife possibly could be doing in his room, though he had a pretty damn good idea. His last memory consisted of meeting Benny behind the club and then from there on it was blurry at best.

"You tell me," Lip suggested, his arms crossed over his chest. Holding a bag in front of Ian, he felt the anger boiling. "You were doing fucking coke? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I didn't think, and it helped for a while," Ian admitted, "Helped take away some of the uneasiness the pills were giving me."

"Helped take away the uneasiness, huh?" Lip mocked, tossing the empty bag into his brother's hands. "Just made you pick up a goddamn butcher knife and scare your little sister to death."

Ian clenched his fist around the bag and closed his eyes. The amount of self-hatred that passed through his body was enough to knock him off his feet. He fleetingly glanced at Debbie and swallowed hard. The overwhelming flood of emotions that coursed within him made him angry, made him want to fight the force that had burdened him with this disease.

"Ian."

He snapped his eyes open albeit reluctantly and was met with Lip's bright blue eyes looking down at him in concern, a change of emotions so quick that it made him waver for a moment.

"We're gonna fix this, alright?" Lip placed a hand on him shoulder, though it did nothing to comfort him. "We're gonna fix it."


	2. Chapter 2

chapter two

He watched his brother from a distance, a storm of emotions passing over him as the younger boy swallowed a few pills. It hadn't taken much; Ian had all but willingly agreed that this was best after he'd accidentally caught his younger sister having a near meltdown over what had almost happened. Lip wasn't naive enough to succumb to the belief that this would last any longer than a day, however. This wasn't the first time Ian had failed in his promise to keep taking his pills; they all knew what to expect this time.

The lack of knives in the kitchen was something he knew bothered Ian, something he knew absolutely grated on his younger brother but there was nothing to be done. The damage had already been done, all trust gone with the wind.

With all of Ian's chaos, he'd justifiably had little time to ponder Mickey's situation. Forcing the words out of his mouth felt like swallowing hot rocks and he had no interest in taking his brother back to the edge. His reaction would be unpredictable; who knew how logically he'd be thinking with a month's worth of cocaine in his system on top of already having a bipolar disorder.

Lip just needed a little more time, a little more air to breathe before he forced himself to bare this burden upon Ian. Keeping it a secret was out of the question at this point; too many other people had made that choice for him. If he didn't say anything soon, he knew Mandy Milkovich would be waiting first in line. She'd had yet to see Ian, hadn't actually been around to visit in years, though he supposed that was because she'd really only returned once Mickey was released. Even then however, it would've given her more than enough time to visit her long lost best friend; he couldn't imagine why she hadn't shown her face.

So he brought it up one day.

"You talk to Mandy recently?"

Ian lowered the coffee mug and raised an eyebrow as he thought about it. "Yeah, said she was somewhere in Detroit. Found a job, even shares a rental with a coworker." A pause. "Why?"

Lip nodded his head tersely and scratched at the back of his neck; he very well couldn't come out and ask how recently this had been. For whatever reason Mandy was holding her distance, and he couldn't figure out why.

"Just curious I guess," He offered by means of explanation, though he wasn't daft enough to believe that Ian bought it. He debated on slowly weaving Mickey into the conversation, but in the end decided against it. It'd been a little over three weeks since Ian's butchered suicide attempt, and he still wasn't willing to take the chance of sending Ian into the deep end.

So it was only natural that Lip had the choice taken from him.

A rapid knock at the door had him out of his seat, both curious and slightly annoyed. Keeping the doors locked had become a new thing in the Gallagher household over the years after a group of cronies had come after Carl. Lip unlatched the door and felt the dread overwhelm him as he was met face to face with the one person he had hoped not to see again until Ian could at the very least be trusted again.

Mandy was shivering, holding her crossed arms to her chest as she fought to hold herself up. She was a Milkovich; she would never be weak, not for a Gallagher.

Lip slipped outside, tossing a look back to make sure Ian was still occupied before closing the door behind him. "Mandy?"

She was shaking though if it was from the cold or something else entirely, he couldn't tell. The dread was building up and with one look he understood immediately. "Fuck."

"Congratulations, Lip," She spat spitefully, "you've officially run out of time. He's got a few days left at best; Ian has to know."

"Mandy, we just got him back and I-"

"You don't get to make that decision for him," She dropped her arms and pushed past him, on a clear mission to get to her best friend. Lip sighed internally and followed her in; there was no use stopping the inevitable, not when the end wasn't far ahead.

Ian dropped the mug as he caught sight of the blonde locks and was wrapped around her before Lip could rightly process what was happening.

"I thought you were in Detroit," He muttered incredulously against her neck. "What are you doing here?"

She visibly stilled against him and he pulled her back to get a read on her. "Mandy?"

Meeting Lip's eyes one last time before venturing into what was about to become unknown territory, she gripped at Ian's hand and led him to sit down. Propping back the chair as she sat beside him, she delved into the story immediately.

"I haven't been in Detroit since May," She admitted, closing her eyes briefly. Ian waited patiently, aware that she would explain on her own terms or not at all. "May," She repeated, "Which was when Mickey was released from prison."

Lip watched with guarded eyes as Ian's back visibly stiffened with what he guessed was either tension or anxiety.

"I thought he still had a few years left," Ian, to his credit, held his composure and spoke the words with only utmost clarity. Scarily calm almost. Lip leaned against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

"That would've been a lot fucking simpler," Mandy murmured more to herself than any of the inhabitants of the room. "Ian, he uh, they let him out early. And not for good behavior." She was struggling to reveal the truth without having to come out and say it, Lip waiting for the ball to drop all the way.

When Ian remained silent, he decided it was time to intervene. "Mickey's dying, Ian."

Ian's eyes snapped up to meet his older brother's and he shook his head. "You're lying."

Mandy bit at her lip and wrapped a cold hand around the red head's wrist. "Doctors say he doesn't have much time left," She swallowed angrily and Lip noticed that the hand that wasn't holding Ian in place was pulled up into a fist tight enough to turn her knuckles ghostly white.

Ian shook his head, seemingly at a loss for words before he peeled his wrist out of his best friend's grasp and stood up. He busied himself at the sink, plucking both his and Lip's mugs off the table and dousing them with water. Lip eyed Mandy warily, well aware that this could pull Ian over the edge and there would be no way to stop it this time.

Lip approached him slowly, the same way he'd approach a skittish animal and rested a hand against his brother's shoulder. The contact immediately ended all of Ian's ministrations and he gripped the counter tightly, face contorted in something akin to pain.

"What the fuck do the doctors know anyway?" Lip tried for reassurance but was met with nothing but silence from both parties. He removed his hand and ducked his head; nobody had enough energy to buy into his shit, not today.

"You need to see him," Mandy pushed gently, moving to stand closer to her best friend. She wrapped her hand around his bicep and he turned to face her, a look that Lip wasn't sure he'd ever seen decorating his features.

"Okay?" Mandy rested her palms against his cheeks and tilted his head down to meet her eyes. "You need to come talk to him."

Lip looked away from the scene before him and ran an idle hand through his curls. Mickey Milkovich had been nothing but an indignant, unnecessary pain in his ass for as long as he could remember, couldn't even envision a time where he'd genuinely ever liked the guy. He didn't think it existed. But somehow when he'd had his head turned, Mickey had snuck up on him, had entered his brother's life before Lip could warn the red head what he was in for. Ian had heard all the stories, had been more than prepared to bash the shorter boy with a brick only a few years prior; Lip couldn't pinpoint the exact day that it suddenly changed, but it had become something so much deeper than that, something he himself would never understand letalone relate to.

Pulling a joint out out of his pocket and throwing out some excuse about needing air, he wasted no time in getting the fuck out of the kitchen.

Ian struck at the counter top effectively shoving Mandy back a few steps, not caring whether or not it would leave a dent. It probably would. His entire life up until this point had been a joke, the laughing stock of the Gallagher household. Just like Monica, he'd been told over and over until slowly the words had scripted themselves permanently into his cerebrum.

Mandy watched him silently, unsure how to intervene and end the waging war that was clearly playing out inside his head. He ignored her and took a steadying breath; he'd have to remember for next time to tell Dr. Ramona that these pills had him strung up like a telephone pole. Ian realized with an ugly lurch in his stomach that couldn't entirely be blamed on the meds that this was happening. Mandy hadn't wavered, her image hadn't begun to dissipate and this was all real.

It had been years since he'd seen Mickey, only really gathering vague details of their breakup and even foggier memories of his short visit in prison. His disease had taken that, had snatched up every piece of his life that had once meant something and had dumped it aside. Ian couldn't even remember the last thing he'd told Mickey, only that he'd been unable to shake off the older man's voice for hours. Hours that had been spent battling it out with his siblings whom were more eager to shove the pills down his throat than to hold an actual conversation with him. According to holier than thou Lip, the drugs he'd picked up on only a few weeks later hadn't done much to help the mania. But he didn't remember much about that.

"Ian?"

He was brought back to reality, his thoughts disappearing back under the surface almost as immediately as they'd come, and he looked up to meet her eyes. Her blonde hair was tucked tightly behind her ears, looking as though it had been through hell and back if the visible knots were anything to go by and her sleeves hung much too far off her gangly arms. She was a mess. He pulled her in his arms anyway.

"It'll be okay, Mandy," He spoke into her hair, though it sounded much more like a mantra than a reassurance. Ian wasn't naive enough to believe that he would be witnessing a full Mandy Milkovich breakdown in his kitchen, especially not with Lip only outside the door, but when he felt her begin to shake a little he held her tighter.

The embrace only lasted a few seconds before Mandy seemed to realize what family she had been raised in, and she wiped at her cheeks clumsily.

Ian was at a loss of words, still drowsy from the meds he'd swallowed earlier and still disturbed and shaken up by the news he'd received only moments prior. Mickey was dying, there was no cure, and he undoubtedly would feel the guilt of their last conversation harder than ever the second he managed to right himself.


End file.
